Sig Christenson is a veteran military reporter who has made nine trips to the war zone. He writes regularly for Hearst about service members, veterans and heroes, among other topics. He is also the co-founder and former president of Military Reporters and Editors, founded in 2002.

Stolen Valor

06/09/2012

A tearful Timothy Michael Poe apologized Friday for outrage over disputed accounts he gave on a TV talent show over his war service, including claims that he was shot in Iraq.

Poe's fiancee, Carrie Morris, told the San Antonio Express-News that he's had memory problems since a 2005 training accident and that he incorrectly believed he had served in Iraq. She said Poe had not “gotten the proper help.”

Poe, meanwhile, told WOAI-AM's “Joe Pags Show” he had set an appointment with a VA psychiatrist to “find out what's going on in my head.”

In a tearful interview, he apologized to “anyone I have offended in any way. I never intended to hurt anyone. I just wanted to put out there that, look, there's life after accidents. I love what the soldiers do for this country and I did my best for my country, and I apparently need help, and I want to say to everyone God bless you.”

Poe performed Monday on NBC's “America's Got Talent.” Occasionally stuttering, he told the judges and a national audience about suffering back and head injuries in a 2009 firefight in Afghanistan.

Morris wouldn't say if he would be in the contest's next round.

It also wasn't clear what he was apologizing for in the brief radio interview. Morris wouldn't let him talk but said he was sorry “for everything's that's been going on.”

06/08/2012

Timothy Poe, a country crooner from San Antonio accused of lying on national television about being badly wounded in Afghanistan, was challenged Thursday over claims that he was shot in one leg while in Iraq.

The Minnesota National Guard charged that the story, told last month to a Dallas television station, wasn't true, saying its records showed that Poe, 35, reported to training at Camp Shelby, Miss., in 2005 but didn't go to Iraq because of a “medical condition” that officials didn't identify.

“There is no official record that Mr. Poe deployed to Iraq and sustained injuries in combat,” said Lt. Col. Kevin Olson, a Minnesota Guard spokesman.

Poe became an overnight sensation Monday when he was featured in a segment of NBC's “America's Got Talent.” He told the judges and the national television audience at an Austin audition of suffering back and head injuries in a 2009 firefight in Afghanistan.

The Guard said Poe went home with an ear problem after just more than a month in the war zone, and others who said they served with him called his story an outright lie.

Poe could not be reached despite multiple calls during the past two days. The Express-News asked him to allow San Antonio Military Medical Center, where he was treated from September 2009 until his medical discharge in May 2011, to release information about his treatment. So many messages had been left on the phone that its storage capacity was full.

SAMMC has yet to release any documents, but the Minnesota National Guard provided records that in some cases appeared to support parts of Poe's story and undermine other claims he has made.

The Guard said Poe gave the records to the media. After examining them, Olson said, “He appears to lack the required justification to conclusively prove his injuries are combat-related. Absent this lack of supporting justification, it's impossible to prove Mr. Poe's injuries resulted from combat action.”